FULL NOVELXO Neon Gods: Chapter 27
I expected Persephone to turn away from me. She’s seen what I’m capable of now. There are no illusions that I’m really a good man playing pretend. I’ve spent the last thirty minutes bracing for it while I let her get her sister settled upstairs.
I never expected her to turn to me for comfort.
“I’m sorry.” Persephone releases a long breath, her hands fisting the back of my shirt as if she thinks I’ll move away one second before she tells me to. “It seems like I’ve brought you nothing but problems since I got to the lower city.”
“Come here.” I press a kiss to her temple. “Never apologize for bursting into my life, little siren. I don’t regret a moment of my time with you. I don’t want you to regret it, either.”
“Okay,” she whispers. She clings to me in silence as we listen to Eurydice begin to sob in the bathroom, loud enough to be heard over the shower. Finally, Persephone sighs. “I can’t leave her tonight.”
“I know.” I don’t want to let her go, to walk out of this room. Given enough time and distance, she might reconsider how she feels about what happened tonight. I clear my throat. “Thank you for calling my name. I…I don’t know if I would have stopped.” I tense, waiting for the inevitable rejection that confession will bring.
She nods slowly. “That’s why I did it.” She starts to say something else, but the shower shuts off. We both look at the bathroom. Eurydice needs her more than I do tonight.
I give her one last squeeze and force myself to release her. “You’ll be safe here. No matter what else has changed, that hasn’t.”
“Hades…” Her bottom lip wobbles a little before she seems to make an effort to firm it. “He’s going to use this to force me back and bring you to your knees.”
I can’t lie to her, even if a comforting lie might sound nice right now. “He’s going to try.” I turn toward the door. “I won’t let him take you, Persephone. Even if I have to kill him myself.”
She flinches. “I know.” The words aren’t happy ones. If anything, they sound sad. Almost like she’s saying goodbye.
It’s harder than I anticipate to leave her. I can’t shake the feeling that she won’t be there when I get back. But no matter what else is true, Zeus won’t risk throwing away his advantage by striking tonight. He needs the rest of the Thirteen behind him when he comes for me, and that will take time.
I hope.
I find Charon standing outside my study. He’s glaring at the door, but I know him well enough to know he’s still pissed about how things went down tonight. He gives himself a shake when he sees me. “Andreas is waiting.”
“Let’s not keep him waiting any longer, then.”
The old man is already shaking his head as we enter the room and I shut the door. “I knew it would come to this. He’ll crush you just like he crushed your father.” His words slur slightly, and the tumbler of amber liquid in his hand is the obvious culprit.
I give Charon a look, but he shrugs. There’s nothing to say. Even at his advanced age, Andreas does whatever he wants to. I need my people focused, but I have to deal with this first. I owe it to him, after all. I owe him fucking everything.
“I’m not my father.” There was a time when that truth felt like an itch I could never quite scratch. Andreas loved my father, was loyal right down to his bones. The picture he paints of the man is larger than life, a strange sort of expectation that weighed heavily on me as I was growing up. How could I compare with that?
That’s the trick, though. I don’t have to compete with the specter of the man who fathered me. He’s gone. He’s been gone for over thirty years at this point. I’m my own person, and it’s long past time for Andreas to acknowledge that.
I sink into the chair across from him. “I’m not my father,” I repeat slowly. “He trusted the rules and laws and it got him killed. He never saw Zeus coming.” A single truth that I’ll never reconcile. If he was as good as Andreas says, why didn’t he see the snake that Zeus is? Why didn’t he protect us?
I shove the thoughts away. No doubt they’ll be back to plague me in the lonely nights ahead, but right now, they detract from my focus. I can’t afford to miss a step. “I’ve spent my entire life studying Zeus. You think I won’t be able to anticipate him?”
“What can you do?” Andreas sounds like a ghost of himself, his once-booming voice faint and cracking. “What can you do against the king of the gods?”
I push slowly to my feet. “He’s not the only king in Olympus.” I jerk my chin at Charon. “Get him to his room and have someone stay with him. Then we need to talk.”
We get Andreas on his feet and I clasp his shoulders. “Get some rest, old man. We have a war to win.”
Andreas searches my face. “Hades?” A grin splits his craggy face. “Hades, my old friend. I’ve missed you.”
Not me. My father. My chest sinks, but I give his shoulders one last squeeze and let Charon herd his uncle out of the room. I stalk to my desk and pick up the bottle of whiskey Andreas left behind but put it down without opening it. No matter how attractive the thought of smoothing my rougher edges is, I need to be sharp tonight. Longer than tonight—until the end of this.
The door open behinds me with a faint creak, raising the small hairs on the back of my neck. Every instinct I have screams danger, but instead of spinning around and throwing the bottle of whiskey, I turn slowly, already suspecting who I’ll find. Only one person is capable of slipping past my security. Frankly, I’m surprised she actually used the door this time instead of appearing in my office chair as if by magic. “Someday, you’re going to have to tell me how you get past my security even when it’s at its highest.”
“Someday, maybe I’ll consider it.” Hermes isn’t wearing her characteristic grin. She’s dressed in a pair of black fitted pants and a long purple shirt that looks like a cross between menswear and a dress. The better to fit in with the shadows, apparently.
I walk around to lean against my desk. “Official business, I take it.”
“Yes.” Something like regret flickers over her features. “You misstepped, Hades. You shouldn’t have given him an opening. It’s tied all our hands, even those of us who consider you a friend.”
For some reason, that’s what gets me. Friends. I’ve barely been able to acknowledge the fact that she and Dionysus might be friends, and now they’re gone. Despite my determination to maintain control, hurt flickers to life. “Not that good of friends if we end up on the opposite side of a war.”
She narrows her eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like in the upper city. It’s a different world than it is down here. You might be the benevolent king of the lower city, but Zeus is another animal entirely. Crossing him requires paying a higher price than most of us are capable of.”
I wonder at that. I’ve known Hermes for years, but we’ve never talked about either of our pasts through mutual silent agreement. I don’t know where she came from, don’t know anything about her family or if she has one. I don’t know how high a cost she’d pay to try to stand against Zeus.
A sigh slips out. I don’t mean to sound so fucking tired, but the enormity of what’s coming will overwhelm me if I think about it too hard. I’ve planned for this possibility since I was old enough to understand what had happened to my parents and who was responsible.
I never planned on Persephone, though. The thought of her bearing any part of the cost? No. I won’t allow it. I don’t give a fuck what’s required of me.
“Let’s get on with it, then.” I motion for her to deliver whatever message she’s obviously brought. “What does the old bastard have to say?”
Hermes nods and clears her throat. Her voice, when it emerges, is a startling approximation of Zeus’s booming tones. “You have thirteen hours to return both Dimitriou girls to the proper side of the river. Failure to do so will result in the annihilation of you and everyone within your command. I can’t be held responsible for the civilian losses. Make the right choice, Hades.” Hermes exhales and gives herself a shake. “End transmission.” The joke falls flat between us.
I study her. “Thirteen hours?”
“Never let it be said that Zeus lacks a sense of theatrics. One hour for each of the Thirteen.”
“He’s not going to back off even if I return them.” He’s waited too long for an opportunity exactly like this. I don’t know what happens if I die and there’s no one of my bloodline to continue the name. Does the title die out with me and he splits the lower city with Poseidon? Or does Zeus step in and assign someone of his choosing? Neither option would benefit my people.
“No, I don’t suppose he is.” The conflict on her face says everything I need to know. Hermes doesn’t like where this is going, but she won’t put her neck on the line to stop it. I’m not sure she could stop it even if she wanted to.
While I’m still contemplating responses, Hermes ducks forward and drags me into a hug. “Please, please be careful.”
I return the hug awkwardly, half expecting a knife in the ribs. “I make no promises.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” She gives me one last squeeze and steps back. Her dark eyes shine a little before she blinks the tears away. “Do you have a response?”
“He’ll have my response in thirteen hours.”
She opens her mouth like she wants to argue but finally nods. “Good luck, Hades.”
“Use the front door when you leave.”
“Now where would be the fun in that?” She flashes me a smile and then she’s gone, slipping out the door and leaving me wondering what the fuck I’m going to do.
No matter how intensely I’ve prepared for this, it doesn’t change the fact that the cost will be high. Zeus will strike hard and fast once I’ve missed this deadline, and he’ll bring the war to my territory to ensure my people pay the highest price. It serves a dual purpose of hurting me and potentially damaging their steadfast loyalty, paving the way for them to accept a new leader when he finally succeeds in taking me out.
I have a plan. I have to stick to it.